Eleven U.S. metropolitan areas contain more than 100,000 private-sector businesses, according to the latest counts from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The nation's population leader naturally holds first place in this category, too. The New York City area, which sprawls across three states, had 531,446 private-sector business establishments in 2009, the most recent year for which official figures are available.

Rounding out the top five are Los Angeles (333,006 business establishments), Chicago (237,245), Miami-Fort Lauderdale (169,725) and Philadelphia (145,714). The other markets above the 100,000 threshold are Washington, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Boston, Houston and San Francisco-Oakland.

The Census Bureau updates its counts of private-sector businesses on an annual basis. It defines an establishment as "a single physical location at which business is conducted or services or industrial operations are performed." A company may consist of one or more establishments.

The following database presents the latest business counts for 938 metropolitan and micropolitan areas. Use the tab to isolate the list to a single state, or simply hit Search to view the entire database at once. You can re-sort by clicking any column header. A second click reverses the sort.

On Numbers used raw Census Bureau data to calculate the average number of employees per private-sector business in each market. Tuskegee, Ala., tops the rankings with 29.78 workers per establishment, while Ocean City, N.J., is last with 6.28 employees per business.

Subsequent editions of On Numbers this week will provide metropolitan breakdowns of company payrolls, as well as the latest counts for three classifications of businesses (small, medium and large).

METROPOLITAN PRIVATE-SECTOR BUSINESS COUNTS (2009)

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